Computer Crime Research Center

Internet Crime: Where Anonymity Cuts Both Ways

It’s true, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Ed
Newcomer, that the internet has made wildlife crime easier, and easier to
hide. But it’s also made it easier for wildlife law enforcement agents to
pose as potential customers – and to catch people.

“What works for criminals also works for us,” said Newcomer. “The
internet provides anonymity for everyone, and when we go online, the people
we’re after have no idea who we are.”

Wildlife crime is a huge growth industry, grown larger still by the
internet. Most experts believe that the global illegal wildlife trade
measures in the billions of dollars, annually. Profits in this illicit
market are so huge that law enforcement officers routinely note that the
black market in wildlife is now the second largest in the world, ranking
only behind the trade in illegal drugs. (In the mid-1990s, an ounce of
rhino horn sold in Yemen for about $1,687 per ounce, according to the World
Wildlife Fund -- making it more valuable than gold, which has a current
price of $667 per ounce).

Animals – and that includes everything from insects to bizarre
objects like footstools made from elephant feet – have always had more
patrons in the more developed Western countries. The nations that are most
likely to have the most vigorous conservation movements also have citizens
with the most disposable income. “That’s the engine that really drives
this train,” said Newcomer.

The drive that pushes people to buy such things as bird-eating
spiders, giant African scorpions, poisonous snakes, macabre furniture and
other ornaments made from animal parts is, said Newcomer, as simple as the
desire to want something that nobody else has. The buyers are frequently
people in upper income levels who simply seem to be taken by a novelty of
the moment. The crime is compounded when the new owners of live exotic
creatures become bored – and decide to dump them in the wild. That has
helped place Florida at the top of the list of states with invasive
species. California, where Newcomer is based, has its share.

How much illegal wildlife is available on the internet? Newcomer
said it’s difficult to know; there is no authoritative, dependable
research. But as someone who spends time chasing internet crime, he’s
confident the numbers run to the thousands.

Newcomer thrives on the challenge; he relishes telling the story
about how he and his colleagues nabbed a man in Los Angeles not long ago
who billed himself as “the world’s most wanted butterfly smuggler.” He
sold Newcomer $14,000 worth of protected butterflies and would have sold
him $300,000 worth, if Newcomer had had the cash. The smuggler is spending
two years in a federal prison.

The agents’ undercover work is as much a battle of wits as anything
else; they must change their tactics often – to fit the changing tactics of
the people they are after.

Newcomer, who earned a law degree before deciding he wanted to be a
wildlife agent, isn’t discouraged. “Everything I work for is incapable of
dialing 9-1-1,” said Newcomer. “Wildlife is resilient, but it’s not
inexhaustible. You worry about reaching the end of the line. I want every
illegal wildlife dealer who is online to think about one thing: your next
customer may be a Fish and Wildlife Service law enforcement agent.”